David Lichine (1910-1972) was a noted choreographer, teacher, and dancer. Tatiana Riabouchinska (1917-2000) was an internationally celebrated ballet star and teacher. The David Lichine and Tatiana Riabouchinska papers document the professional life of the dance couple. These files contain correspondence, photographs, calling cards, choreographic notes, and scrapbooks.

Biographical/historical information

David Lichine (1910-1972) was a noted choreographer, teacher, and dancer. He was born in Rostov-on-Don, in Russia. His family left Russia during the revolution and settled in Constantinople. He was later sent to Paris for his education, studying dance in Paris with Lubov Egorova and Bronislava Nijinska.

He made his debut with Ida Rubinstein's Company in 1928 and with Anna Pavlova's company in 1930. Lichine danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo from 1932 to 1945, where he met and began dancing with Tatiana Riabouchinska. While with Ballet Russe, he created roles in George Balanchine's Cotillion and Le Bourgeois, and Massine's Jeux d'Enfants, Le Beau Danube and Beach (all in 1932) among many others. Lichine began work as a choreographer in 1933. His many ballets included Francesca de Rimini in 1937, Prodigal Son in 1938 and Graduation Ball in 1940.

Lichine and his dance partner Tatiana Riabouchinska joined Ballet Theatre (now American Ballet Theater) in 1941. When Mikhail Fokine died in 1942, Lichine finished his ballet Helen of Troy. In 1943 Lichine and Riabouchinska married, and continued working together. They had one child, Tania. In 1952 the couple moved to Los Angeles, opening a ballet school in Beverly Hills, where they taught for many years.

Lichne continued teaching and traveling throughout the United States and Europe, choreographing new ballets and restaging his previous ballets for Netherlands Dance Theatre, Festival Ballet in London, Royal Danish Ballet, and Theatre Colon in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he choreographed a new Nutcracker for the Festival ballet in London. In 1968 he founded the Ballet Society of Los Angeles in an effort to bring a professional, permanent company to the area. He died in Los Angeles in 1972.

Tatiana Riabouchinska (1917-2000) was an internationally celebrated ballet star and teacher. Born in Russia, her parents fled the revolution for Paris when she was 2 years old. In Paris, she trained under Mathilde Kschessinska, and by age 15 she had attracted the attention of George Balanchine, who recruited her for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Together with Irina Baronova and Tamara Toumanova she was the third of De Basil's "baby ballerinas" in the 1930s. During her childhood and well into her young adult years her career was managed by her father, Mikhail Riabouchinsky.

Riabouchinska was popular not only with audiences but with choreographers – who created roles specifically for her talents. These included Balanchine's La Concurence and Cotillon in 1932, Massine's Jeux d'Enfants, and Fokine's Cendrillon. Riabouchinska traveled the world as a guest artist for the Australian Ballet, the Ballets des Champs-Elysees and the London Festival Ballet.

She was the model for Hyacinth Hippo, the hippopotamus in the Dance of the Hours segment of Disney's Fantasia for which Lichine provided the model for the Alligator. They also danced together on-screen in the "Two Silhouettes" segment of Disney's Make Mine Music in 1946.

Riabouchinska gradually retired from dance after opening the ballet school in Beverly Hills with her husband. She maintained the school until 1998, and she continued teaching ballet at Academy 331 in West Hollywood until her death in 2000.

Scope and arrangement

The David Lichine and Tatiana Riabouchinska papers document their lives as professional dancers and teachers. The papers consist of correspondence, contracts, art, photographs, choreographic notes, calling cards, programs, ballet materials, and identification papers. There are also scrapbooks, documenting Riabouchinska and Lichine as separate artists and their work together.

The David Lichine and Tatiana Riabouchinska papers are arranged in three series:

Series I contains materials relating to the personal and professional life of dancer, choreographer, and teacher David Lichine. These include ballet materials, choreographic notes, correspondence, contracts, identity papers, programs, and photographs. The ballet materials hold photographs, notes, press releases, and plot breakdowns. Choreographic notes consist of two notebooks with ideas and sketches, one in Russian. Lichine's correspondence is business related, with many telegrams of congratulations, letters referring to reviews, and contract negotiations. Lichine's many identification documents reflect his status as a refugee, and allowed for his passage between countries while he was an immigrant in France and before being granted his United States Citizenship. There are photographs of Lichine in costume and rehearsing dancers for his many ballets. Screenplays written (but never produced) by Lichine during his time in Hollywood are here. Arrangement is alphabetical by subject.

Series II contains materials relating to the career of noted ballerina and teacher Tatiana Riabouchinska. The bulk of the papers reflects her early ballet career. Items include fan art, calling cards, Christmas cards, correspondence, identification cards, photographs, documents relating to Mikhail Riabouchinsky's management of her career, and a home-made book about the creation of Graduation Ball.

Of note in this series are the calling cards, which were sent backstage by fans and admirers often accompanied by flowers. Riabouchinska counted royalty, heads of state, and other prominent figures among her fans. The correspondence is both personal and professional, with the bulk of the letters being requests for autographs, programs, or photographs. There is some personal correspondence with Lichine, other family members, and friends such as Lucia Chase, Richard Buckle, John Martin, Cyril Beaumont, Norman Demuth, Sonia Gaskell, and Margaret Caron.

Photographs consist of pictures of Riabouchinska in costume as well as professional shots of other dancers, both signed and unsigned. There is correspondence and contract negotiations to and from Mikhail Riabouchinsky, who was monitoring Riabouchinska's early career. Some of the correspondence concerns her 1935 bout with scarlet fever.

There is also a notebook entitled The Story of Graduation Ball in which Riabouchinska describes the costumes, the staging, and other details about the creation of one of Lichine's most famous ballets. She uses black and white photographs and colored pens to record how the costumes were made and what colors were used in the original staging.

The scrapbooks hold clippings and photographs and pertain to Lichine's career, Riabouchinska's career, or both. There is also a scrapbook of clippings on choreographer and dancer Leonide Massine. The scrapbooks on Riabouchinska are part of a 12 book series put together by Mikhail Riabouchinsky. They are extensive and cover every aspect of her career between 1927 and 1943. Clippings from newspapers all over the world, photographs, and notes have been kept. Several of Lichine's scrapbooks have family photographs and clippings. The scrapbooks that document Lichine and Riabouchinska's work together have both professional and personal photographs as well as clippings and magazine articles. Notable among these is the scrapbook Riabouchinska kept about 1943's The Waltz King, which Lichine choreographed and in which Raibouchinska starred.